EBC TO SPLASH E85M ON OVER 9 000 OFFICERS

MBABANE – Just over 9 000 officers have been engaged by the EBC from the nomination stage until the secondary elections.

The bulk of the officers are polling officers who according to a document which this publication has in its possession, stand at 6 760.
The polling officers are expected to be engaged for about 15 days at a daily rate of E250. The total amount budgeted for the polling officers stands at E25.3 million.

The EBC has further engaged the services of about 66 returning officers, who for 45 days would be paid at a daily rate of E450, while the 441 presiding officers are expected to be paid E350 per day.
The commission has also engaged 150 drivers for the elections.

According to the payment sheet, which reliable sources availed to this publication, there are expected to be 132 heavy duty truck and bus drivers who will be paid at a rate of E350 per day for six days.

expected

The EBC has engaged about 12 of its own drivers at a rate of E250 per day, and additional ones also at the same pay rate. These are expected to work over a period of six days.

For the post elections, a total of 11 EBC drivers would be engaged also at a rate of E250 per day. The Secondary Elections are expected to be held on September 21, 2018. Meanwhile, the EBC has already paid out about E35 million in personnel costs.
The above figure was for the registration process.

Some public officers will be smiling all the way to the bank as E85 million has been set aside for elections personnel costs.
According to a document, the breakdown of the costs reveals that the grand total is expected to be around E84 654 400.

hired

The bulk of the money is to be paid out to the officers who have been hired for the nominations, Primary Elections which are expected to take place on Saturday and the Secondary Elections which will take place on September 21, 2018.

The total for the aforementioned stages is about E39 525 250.  According to the document, among those who will be the highest paid are the returning officers, accountants, human resources and legal advisor, who will be paid a daily rate of E450.

Some of the nominees last Tuesday, during the special voting held at the Mavuso Trade Centre, expressed concern at the fact that a majority of the elections officers were already employed civil servants and had high ranking positions yet they would still be paid for work at the elections. An example of these are the returning officers a majority of whom are principal secretaries and during the 45 days, they would claim an amount of E450 per day.

Ordinarily

This means in total, some of the principal secretaries will earn E20 250 in 45 days. Ordinarily PSs earn a basic salary of about E53 000 per month.
According to the document which is titled Elections and Boundaries Commission Personnel Costs for 2018 National Elections, there were four steps in the process.

The first part was for the registration process, where about E35 866 650 was paid to about 3 080 officers. A majority of these were security officers (1 218) who were paid E250 per day for 42 days; followed by the registration clerks who also received the same amount over 47 days.

The breakdown from the registration process reveals that one project manager was paid about E78 000 over 120 days at a daily rate of E650.    

 
validation

The next phase of the election process was the validation process which had a duration of about 30 days, and among those who were supposed to be paid include competent witnesses and additional drivers.
A total of E6 505 500 was budgeted for the validation exercise.

The final stage of the election process has been named the Post Elections, where about E2.7 million has been set aside for it.
Those involved in the post elections have been scheduled to work for about 60 days, and these include drivers, support staff, secretaries and IT personnel.

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